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Over the past month, copper prices have touched on six-year lows — dating back to the depths of the post-financial-crisis recession — before rising slightly late last week. On Thursday, the price was $2.38 a pound, up from $2.31 earlier in the week.

In addition, two major copper producers, Asarco and Freeport-McMoRan, recently announced 211 and 150 layoffs in Southern ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ at the Hayden concentrator and the Sierrita Mine, respectively, due to the continuing price slump.

But “the current market volatility does not change our long-term outlook on copper,â€� said Patrick Merrin, vice president of the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ business unit of Hudbay Minerals, the company seeking to build the Rosemont Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains.

“Copper and other base metal prices are cyclical by nature. Hudbay remains committed to developing the Rosemont project and contributing to the community by creating jobs, providing a much needed economic boost, and operating in a safe and sustainable way,� Merrin said in a written statement.

A Colorado-based mining economist agreed that Hudbay is likely to open Rosemont when and if it gets permitted, even if prices stay low. But it could well open with fewer than the 400 employees the company has said it will ultimately hire at Rosemont, said John Tilton, a research professor at the Colorado School of Mines Division of Economics and Business. Merrin declined to comment on Tilton’s predictions.

The opening also might be delayed if a significant amount of the project’s capital costs still need to be raised at the time of permitting, Tilton said. The mine is expected to cost about $1.2 billion, and Hudbay’s predecessor Augusta Resource Corp. had raised about $500 million before the project got hit by a series of permitting delays starting in about 2011.

At the moment, the project is under a detailed endangered species review, and the timetable for a federal decision isn’t known.

If a significant amount of the capital costs have already been incurred, “it is very unlikely that the mine would not start operating as soon as it can,� Tilton said. Since the mine’s fixed costs must be paid whether or not it’s open, “it loses less money by operating than by shutting down,� Tilton said.

So far, the mine project has raised about $500 million, and many outside experts have said that getting permits will be the key toward getting the rest of the needed cash.

In 2009, Augusta Resource Corp., Hudbay’s predecessor at Rosemont, said in a feasibility study that the mine will be profitable, even very profitable, at copper prices as low as $1.85 a pound. One reason for that is Rosemont’s operating costs will be lower than at most copper mines around the world, Augusta said.

The company estimated a higher capital cost for the mine in a 2012 feasibility study — $1.2 billion vs. $900 million earlier — but didn’t back off its prediction that the mine could be profitable at $1.85 a pound, and neither has Hudbay.

But if the copper price is low at the time of opening, “every effort will be made to reduce costs including not hiring for any non-essential positions,� Tilton said. “That’s true for the whole industry, not just Rosemont.�

Hudbay’s stock price closed at $4.63 a share Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. It’s declined from more than $6 per share a month ago and from more than $10 a year ago.

The company lost $55 million in the second quarter of 2015, compared to reporting $300,000 in net profit during the second quarter of 2014. Hudbay operates a mine in Peru and three mines in Canada.